1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image display apparatus, method and program, and recording medium for the program. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique for displaying on a multi-screen a series of slice images taken by means of an X-ray CT apparatus or an MRI apparatus, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a medical image management and display system configured so that an image file containing medical images is provided with display mode information having information for a split screen and medical image frame positions, and when displaying the medical images contained in this image file on a viewer, the screen of the viewer is split according to the split screen information included in the display mode information, and the medical images are displayed at the corresponding positions in the split screen according to the frame position information included in the display mode information (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-334634).
Here, “information for a split screen” refers to information for splitting one screen into a matrix of, for example, [2×2] or [3×3], and “information for frame positions” refers to information representing the positions of the respective display regions separated as a result of the screen splitting (for example, in the case of a split screen of [2×2], it is information representing (1, 1), (1, 2), (2, 1) and (2, 2). Also, the aforementioned display mode information can arbitrarily be input by users.
Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-143095 describes a medical image display system that displays medical images on a display screen according to display conditions such as the number of screen segments and the layout of images. In the medical image display system, for example, when a doctor wishes to make CT images display with a display screen split into nine segments, if the actually displayed screen is not the display conditions the doctor wishes, such as the case where split into four segments, the doctor re-sets the display mode to a desired one in the image display apparatus and re-display the images.